Birthday & Meteors

Today is my Dad's birthday, he turns 66. Happy Birthday Dad. I was heading out to see him but first I did a 25 minute workout on the elliptical and played a little LOTRO.

I left my house at 11am, expecting to get to my dad's around 12:30pm. Well traffic was horrific and it took me 2 hours and 15 minutes to get there. Once I was there we headed out to Claim Jumper for lunch as my dad wanted Prime Rib and my brother mentioned that Claim Jumper had the best. But once we were there we found out that they changed their menu and took Prime Rib off. I asked if he wanted to go somewhere else but he said since we are already here let's just stay and he would get something else. So we enjoyed a nice lunch. After lunch we headed over to Walmart so I could buy him Avengers DVD for his birthday.. we were then off to Toys R Us so he could pick up some Yo Gabba Gabba toys for my niece for her birthday (which is still months away). We then stopped by CVS so he could pick up his prescriptions and then we headed home.

By time we got home Mike, Lora, Kenobi and Molly were home so I got to visit with them for a bit. I also tried to print out some scripts for the webseries I'm working on. We are planning a rehearsal and I wanted to get scripts made and since my printer is broken I was hoping to use my brothers but for some reason the script wouldn't print out in the correct format... I tried for over an hour to get them to work before giving up. I'll have to look online and see how you're suppose to print scripts from this program.. I'm thinking that I'll need to buy the "pro" version of the script writing program to print the scripts out properly.. but first I'll see if I can find a "go around".  I did print out some NDA's (Non-Disclosure Agreement) so the cast can sign them before we do the rehearsal.

I left my Dad's around 6pm, stopped by my favorite Chinese restaurant and picked up some dinner then drove home. I got to my place around 8pm and my buddy Robert joined me about 10 minutes later. Tonight I was having a impromptu Perseid meteor shower viewing party. It was starting at 11pm but Robert wanted to come over early to hang out.  There were about 15 people coming but a few hours before 11pm I started getting texts from folks cancelling. First 1 then 2, then 3 and finally a total of 10 people canceled for various reasons. I was kind of bummed but also happy that this wasn't an offical party and I didn't waste money on snacks and drinks. The only thing that got wasted was time spent getting my back deck ready, moving tables and chairs around.

Lydia arrived around 10:30pm. Robert, Lydia and I went out back around 11:30pm and started looking for shooting stars. It was a perfect night as there wasn't a cloud in the sky.. it was so clear that you could see the Milkyway. Only issue we had was a very bright light in my neighbors driveway (which is on my property), but that was taken care of by placing a cardboard box around it. We saw about 20 or so meteors before Will and Becca arrived at Midnight. They joined in on the star gazing fun. Robert called it quits around 1am, Will and Becca called it quits around 1:30am and Lydia and I went in around 2am.  So we were outside watching for meteors 2 and a half hours and saw about 40 meteors, and about half of those were so bright and you could see the tail for a few seconds afterwards. It was pretty amazing.

Lydia drove back to her place while Robert, Will and Becca crashed at mine.

Though 70% of my guests bailed, the four folks who did make it made it a very fun time.  Thanks Robert, Lydia, Will and Becca for sharing this experience with me. I hope you guys enjoyed the

Perseid meteor shower viewing party.